Sydney Morning Herald columnist

Before our eyes, day by day, Scott Morrison becomes the hollow man. His face tightens and twists, his eyes are dead, and his words strangled with jargon.

We've seen this before. Remember Philip Ruddock gradually turning into a stick of chalk, as immigration minister and later attorney-general, while he plodded his way through the ''Pacific solution'' and the vilification of David Hicks?

This is what happens to human beings who believe the ends justify the means. Ends that are wretched will invariably produce bad means.

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When you peel back the layers, the oft repeated Coalition justification for stopping the boats is that ''the Australian people want it''.

It hardly needs me to point out that history is littered with tragedies when justification is hitched to popularity.

Stopping the boats is an end, and any amount of nastiness to achieve that is justified - popularity confers legitimacy.

Maybe, in decades to come, we will look back at this time and regard it as one of the worst stains on our nation. More awful than the White Australia Policy and up there with the stolen generations. A time when our nation had a dark heart.

Manus Island and Nauru are wretched wastelands, gulags without activity, but they justify the ends.

Professor Ben Saul, on ABC television on Tuesday night, drew an interesting parallel with our policy of indefinite detention, where refugees have been given an adverse security assessment. The other place under the jurisdiction of a western democracy where this also happens is Guantanamo Bay.

It appears Manus Island is also a place of indefinite detention. Liz Thompson, who, as a migration agent, had been assisting asylum seekers on Manus with their refugee claims, told Fairfax Media the official line was that the detainees would be resettled in Papua New Guinea.

Unfortunately, a PNG immigration official went ''off script'' and confirmed to the camp that there were no plans in place for any resettlement program, the incarcerated should simply return home, otherwise their detention would be indefinite.

Is that why Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was pressing the flesh in Cambodia in search of resettlement possibilities? When people put their minds to it, there's no limit to the ''refinements of wickedness'' - a phrase used by Martin Amis in a television interview earlier this week.

Thompson revealed the extent of this chilling apparatus. She was taking the Manus asylum seekers through a process ''that goes nowhere … there's no visa for them to get''. With its ''fake processing'' of refugee claims, ''Manus Island is an experiment in the ultimate logic of deterrence''.

And all of this is backed up by an elaborate legal regime that sanctions and sanctifies our refinements of wickedness. Again, history shows us all too clearly where we end up if people sit idly by while nice ideals such as the rule of law and due process are diced.

So, it is all very good for well-meaning types to hyperventilate about this, week after week. Instead of politicians outdoing themselves to race to the bottom, is there something better that can be proposed?

Months ago, this column advocated going a step further than the idea earlier floated by the Greens. They proposed we take 3800 refugees from Indonesia and invest $70 million into United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees processing in that country.

I would go further and switch our entire humanitarian refugee intake of almost 14,000 from the Middle East, Africa and other parts of Asia and place it all in Indonesia.

The reason people get on boats from Indonesia is because they have no hope of being part of an orderly settlement program. If you give them hope, there is a chance they will not get on boats, because refugees will know they have a place in the queue. As a bonus we would be spared the sanctimonious claptrap that the purpose of the current policy is to save lives.

Our refugee intake from Indonesia has been woeful.

In the nine years to 2009, we took an average of 59 UNHCR refugees a year from that country. In 2010-11 it spiked to 480, a tiny 3.4 per cent of our humanitarian program.

As well, there would be real benefits for Indonesia if we sat down and negotiated a plan along these lines.

A sensible resettlement program managed from Indonesia would dramatically reduce the need for a boats policy, with all its attendant damage to our neighbourhood relations, the long-term psychological and physical damage we are inflicting on detainees, not to mention the harm we are doing to the soul of our nation.

If I am flogging a dead horse here, I would love to know. At least it might be worth trying, even for a few years, to see if it had an impact on boat arrivals and obviate the tow-backs and Manus and Nauru ''solutions''.

Would it be too cynical to suggest that governments, of whatever hue, do not want to test something that is humane? They are too invested in the nasty option - which has the flimsy justification of popularity.

Twitter: @JustinianNews

855 comments

Finally a Fairfax journo that admins there is a "QUEUE"

Commenter

Johnp

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 2:28AM

He said "If you give them hope, there is a chance they will not get on boats, because refugees will know they have a place in the queue." That's not saying there is a queue; it's saying there should be one.

Australia's treatment of "boat people" has been shocking - they are treated worse than we treat convicted murderers, primarily to solve a manufactured crisis to block arrival by the poorest 1% of those who wish to come here. Most of these refugees, when actually processed, have been found to be genuine, non-economic, in-fear-of-life-and-liberty refugees.

In the meantime, Schapelle Corby, a convicted drug smuggler, has been released early from prison and the response of the Australian media has been to offer multimillion dollar contracts.

Commenter

Ronny

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 3:02AM

"Months ago, this column advocated going a step further than the idea earlier floated by the Greens. They proposed we take 3800 refugees from Indonesia and invest $70 million into United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees processing in that country."And why that should stop illegals arriving by boats?? what a Green furphy - please SMH do not take us for complete fools.

Commenter

Ted

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 3:38AM

He did not say that there is a queue because there isn't. Amazing how some people seem able to twist things to suit their own ends. There are no Australian embassies where these people come from. There is no hope for them in their own countries. Who would really want to live in Indonesia or PNG or any other country between here and the middle east on their treacherous travels.

Commenter

Whaat???

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 3:42AM

It bothers me that there are are TWO entry points for those seeking asylum to Australia, however the government and the media only focus on the one. Boats. To be able to determine the best possible solution for the entire issue, the public also needs to know:1. How many arrive by plane2. Where are they detained until their applications are processed3. What is the cost to the taxpayer via this access route4. What is the physical and psychological cost to the detainees via this method of arrival5. Why are both arrival methods not discussed together - in the bigger picture (of this issue)6. Are there harsh penalties for arriving by plane7. Where is Morrison's / Abbott's list of how many days they have not had an arrival by plane

When the public are being fed only snippets of the whole story, it becomes easy to manipulate for political purposes. Give the public the whole story and they should be able to analyse the merit /worth of the overall policy and process, and form a valid opinion about the acceptance/rejection of those seeking asylum.

Commenter

Jump

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 3:50AM

The journo is correct, he is flogging a dead horse.Both major party support offshore detention centre policy, which is unlikely to change .On ur second point wouldn't ordinary Indonesians also start queing up as "refugees" if Australia opens the door ?Who will let go free centre link, Medicare, housing , while option 2 is working for less than $50 a month in a 3 rd world country ?

Commenter

Realist

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 4:04AM

Agreed Johnp

Acknowledging there is a queue is a big step for Fairfax, however it also reveals the flaw in Mr Aklands argument.

There are hundreds of thousands of people in refugee camps around the world who are just as deserving of protection, maybe even more so. However, without the resources to pay a people-smuggler to get them to Indonesia, they are doomed to wait longer and longer because of the queue jumpers who DO have the $10,000 to feed these insidious parasites.

Its easy to overlook this point when you are standing on this side, but for every illegal asylum seeker who is processed and accepted, someone somewhere is pushed back. They deserve the "fair go" that this country always spouts on about.

Commenter

Doug

Location

Darlinghurst

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 4:05AM

Are you agreeing that Manus Island is nothing more than an Abbott government proxy for eternal limbo? The curtain has been raised on their deeply cruel 'processing' charade. It would be refreshing to hear that truth from someone, anyone, on the right.

Commenter

Jessica

Location

Mosman

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 4:07AM

'His face tightens and twists, his eyes are dead"

Reads more like poetry than journalism, last time I saw Morrison on the telly he looked like he was still kicking to me. And as for Phil Ruddock isn't he still serving in Parliament as the longest serving member?

In reality its Kevin Rudd, the man who dismantled Howard's Pacific Solution whose now in the political dust bin eking out some sort of living as a pedagog in Beijing.

Commenter

SteveH.

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 4:15AM

@jump - those that come in by plane cant burn their passports to hide their identities and make it difficult to do any form of background checks on them. why do you burn your passports when you come in by boat?@ronny - the vast majority of asylum seekers who come by boat are well versed in what they are likely to encounter on their way here and when they get here. they know that they will go to Manus now and that's why they are not coming. they don't come here in ignorance. they come with knowledge from relatives and friends already here and they are in contact with them along the way. Manus is intended to be used to shut one particular door. there is a large humanitarian intake (queue?) in place.